Nice article last week in our newspaper; however, last night we got several inches of snow down here on the Front Range

, so obviously that could set them back on opening the road.
Big rig digs into Trail Ridge's drifts
Denver Post, The (CO)
April 16, 2006
Author: Rich Tosches ROCKY MOUNTAIN RANGER, VIEWS FROM THE WEST
Rocky Mountain National Park
Far below the mountain peaks that dot this land, on a busy street shortly before 9 a.m. on Friday in the tourist town of Estes Park, spring had unmistakably arrived. The moment was marked, unofficially, when a traveler emerged from his car, a car with Indiana license plates. The man was wearing a flower-print shirt, sneakers, Bermuda shorts and black socks pulled halfway to his knees.
There is nothing quite like springtime in the Rockies.
Up above, though, 8 miles past the Beaver Meadows entrance to the national park on a twisting ribbon of asphalt known as Trail Ridge Road, snowdrifts towered 20 feet high and winter still held tight.
But its grip was about to be shaken by the roar of a snow-chomping monster. The brand new yellow beast - a massive John Deere tractor equipped with a gigantic rotary snow-blower attachment and a separate, rear-mounted 200- horsepower engine to drive its heavy blades - arrived in the park just a few weeks ago. It cost a bit more than $300,000.
And when operator Arnie Johnson climbed into the cab 12 feet above the ground, turned the key and brought it to life just before noon on Friday, Trail Ridge Road had begun once again to grudgingly give up another winter.
Park officials hope to have the road cleared by Memorial Day.
"But," said Rocky Mountain National Park road-clearer Rudy Marquez, "you just never know. The weather up there on Trail Ridge, well, it's like being in another world."
The road was completed in 1932. It snakes its way through the mountains and tundra, slicing over the Continental Divide and then dropping down to the town of Grand Lake. At its highest point, it takes vehicles 12,183 feet into - or above - the clouds.
Friday, the ritual of clearing the road began with a bit of pomp.
Park superintendent Vaughn Baker and Estes Park Mayor John Baudek stood before an 8-inch wide red ribbon and shared a pair of gigantic scissors as reporters stood in the slush and watched.
A TV station was there to capture the moment. "So, Arnie, have you given the machine a name yet?" the TV person asked.
"Uh, no," Johnson said. "I just call it 'the new one."'
The snowblower was a big hit. With Johnson driving, it attacked a huge drift at Many Parks Curve, chewing into the heavy, wet snow and blowing it some 100 feet into the air. Later, Johnson welcomed visitors into the cab. Among the first was Mayor Baudek.
"I've been up to the top of Trail Ridge with the snow-clearing crews in past years," he said, "and you wonder how they can ever get this road open."
And then he smiled and looked around at the stunning scenery and the blue, cloudless sky.
"There are," he said, "some great parts about being the mayor of Estes Park."
Marquez, the park road-clearer, knows the feeling.
"There's nothing else like being up here, clearing this road," he said. "The danger is part of it. The clouds come in, you get a whiteout and you can't see a thing. These machines get a little topsy-turvy and they slide a bit on you and, well, it makes you pucker a little."
He described one such day.
"I was driving a truck loaded with fuel tanks to feed the big plow truck," Marquez said. "The plow has a big, bright blue beacon. I'm following that beacon and out of nowhere a storm hits and in a few seconds I can't find the beacon. I can't see two feet.
"I sat there for a while, and then started to inch the truck forward. … Then I hit a snow bank and can't move so I wait until the storm blows by. When it cleared, I'm facing the downhill side of Trail Ridge, the tires six inches from the edge of an awful long drop down the mountain. I'd turned that truck 90 degrees, across the road, and almost went straight down the mountain. And I never knew it."
Marquez glanced over at the park's latest piece of snow-fighting machinery and laughed.
"That's an impressive machine, but it will get into a whiteout, a snowstorm up there," he said, "and it will get stuck just like the rest of the trucks get stuck."
Marquez took a deep breath of the thin air and rubbed his shaggy, graying goatee. He is 47, and will, on Monday, begin his 23rd spring of pounding the snow off Trail Ridge Road.
"What a life," he said.